Summary

A vulnerability in VMware Workstation and Fusion could allow a local attacker on a guest operating system to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition on a targeted system.

The vulnerability is due to the improper processing of remote procedure call (RPC) requests by the affected software. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by making a crafted RPC request on a targeted guest operating system. A successful exploit could trigger a NULL pointer dereference condition that causes the guest operating system to crash, resulting in a DoS condition.

VMware has confirmed the vulnerability and released software updates.

Analysis

To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker must have local access to the targeted guest operating system. This access requirement may reduce the likelihood of a successful exploit.

A successful exploit of this vulnerability will cause only the targeted guest operating system to crash. The host operating system is not affected by this vulnerability.

Safeguards

Administrators are advised to apply the appropriate updates.

Administrators are advised to allow only trusted users to access local systems.

Administrators are advised to monitor affected systems.

Vendor Announcements

VMware has released a security advisory at the following link: VMSA-2017-0018

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